10 Interesting facts about Portugal and the Portuguese language

For people interested in visiting or curious to learn more about Portugal and the Portuguese language, here’s a brief overview for help getting started.

1. The name Portugal comes from an ancient town in northern Portugal named Portus Cale, founded ~136 BC, the area today being the city of Porto.

2. Portuguese is the seventh most spoken language worldwide, with about 220 million native speakers and 250 million total. It’s an official language in Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe. Also used in Macau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, India, Malaysia as well as different communities throughout Europe and the Americas. Brazil and San Paulo specifically has the highest number of Portuguese speakers.

3. There are over 10 million people living in Portugal, with over 2 million in the Lisbon area.

4. Portugal is one of the warmest climates in Europe, with areas near the coast being similar to southern areas in Spain or southern California. Nevertheless, it has a diverse geography including the volcanic lakes of Sete Cidades on Sao Miguel, the mountain peaks of the Serra da Estrela, the deep valleys of Curral das Freiras on Mareira island, hillsides and river valleys of the Norte region, the plains of the Alentejo and the beaches of the Algarve.

5. The Portuguese marine waters are one of the most plentiful worldwide, with local fish markets offering sardines, cod, tuna and Atlantic mackerel. Fishing harbors scatter the coast with the largest ones being Matosinhos, Peniche, Olhao, Sesimbra, Figueira da Foz, Sines, Portimao and Madeira.

6. Portugal is the world’s leading cork producer, produced from the Cork Oak, Quercus Suber and includes suberin, helping for impermeability, buoyancy, elasticity and fire resistance, together an ideal solution for wine stoppers. There are about 2.2 million hectares of cork forest worldwide, Portugal has 32% of it and produces 180,000 tons annually, ~60% of worldwide.

9. Portugal has been a wine country from at least the time of the Phoenicians in 10th century BC, exports the fifth highest quantity worldwide, including Whites, Reds, Rose, Sparkling, Ports, Madeira and Moscatel. There are over 170 wineries organized into 14 regions.

10. Portugal is home to the first experimental wave energy farm, the Agucadoura Wave Park. Renewable energy provides 52% of its energy needs, including hydro power with the many rivers available, wind power such as the Alto Minho Wind Farm which was the largest in Europe at the time of completion in 2008, solar energy, geothermal and the recently added wave energy sources.

Have your own networks with others in Portugal

If you regularly share content or work with people in Portugal, here are a few benefits you get from using an Odysen solution:

Have separate networks for different groups, keeping content focused for each. This could be having separate networks for different groups of friends, family members, organizations as well as using in professional environments, having separate networks for different clients or customers.

Organize content with easy to use folders, add sub-folders to expand and see integrated views in respective parent folders.

Within each folder you can add content to the applications, including actions, notes, events, photos, graphics, audio files, office files, videos, websites and blogs.

Get started and invite other users for free with the Basic plan. This includes the ability to add networks, use the applications, and initial storage for your various files.

Learn more about having your own networks with others in Portugal, including using the applications, languages available, solution examples and relevant blog articles.

Published by

Matt

Founder and CEO of Odysen, involved with different writing and music freelancing activities, and have previously worked for larger technology businesses in the US, Europe and Asia.
View all posts by Matt